Do you think that at times what we have referred to as ‘the science’ has got it wrong?

[MarshaBradyo]

I’m thinking about the many times people said well it’s going to go badly wrong and the science backs this up

But a few times this hasn’t happened

July opening
Omicron and not doing ‘circuit breaker’ and not ending in lockdown
Not getting close to best case for omicron

And so on - maybe other examples

What do you think - was it unnecessarily pessimistic?

I just listened to the same

I don't know whether that particular outcome was due to the scientists who advised the Government being way too optimistic, or whether the scientists advising the Government issued dire warnings about what would happen but the Government failed to act on those warnings.

I don't think it was either of those things.

They had a good idea what would happen and they went ahead in that knowledge, because they were prepared to sacrifice the care homes to take pressure off the nhs.

They had a good idea what would happen and they went ahead in that knowledge, because they were prepared to sacrifice the care homes to take pressure off the nhs.

Yes.

@Myfanwy81, I'm so sorry about your lovely dad.

@LilyPond2

Let us not forget that at the start of the pandemic there was a horrendous death rate among care home residents due to Covid positive people being discharged from hospital into care homes. I don't know whether that particular outcome was due to the scientists who advised the Government being way too optimistic, or whether the scientists advising the Government issued dire warnings about what would happen but the Government failed to act on those warnings.

I agree, this was singularly one of the most unscientific and incomprehensible policies that was enacted - why on earth they couldn't have designated certain facilities or homes as red zones and discharge positive people there to be cared for under true isolation conditions rather than disseminate the virus amongst our most vulnerable communities, I'll never understand. Particularly as they then often had blanket policies for not admitting people from care homes into hospital for treatment. Care workers were then pretty much thrown under the bus through lack of access to PPE, our local hospice resorted to adverts on local radio asking for sources of PPE.

Let's look at what science has achieved in the last couple of years.

Vaccines. Antivirals. All sorts of hospital procedures honed to what is most effective. PCR testing. LFTs. Sequencing and tracking variants.

What you're talking about is predicting the future, which has always been a bit tricky. We can't even accurately predict the weather....too many variables. Chaos theory.

Talking about being too pessimistic is missing the plenty of times there have been overly optimistic predictions. More than one model is available. Over by Easter. Back to normal by Christmas. Certainly there were people saying it was done last November and the omicron came and took over within weeks. How omicron panned out was not known in advance and could have gone differently. Were predictions that it could be worse too pessimistic or were we lucky that it wasn't? Don't forget that the response to pessimistic predictions was a massive booster campaign that helped hugely. If the response to a pessimistic prediction is a change in behaviour that goes some way to thwarting the prediction, does that mean that the prediction was wrong?

We can't accurately predict the future. Things can change very rapidly. Scientists are working behind the scenes to create solutions for anticipated problems. Vaccines for variants. New treatments.

What does seem idiotic is to shut down the data collection and hope they can fly blind.

Mathematical models are limited by the quality of the algorithms and the accuracy of the underlying assumptions. That’s well understood and is why changing the parameters and using different models can give vastly different outcomes. Of course we should be guided by science but we should also be realistic as to how helpful it can be. I think the biggest mistake in the science was not realising for so long that Covid was airborne. That mistake drove many ineffective interventions and meant that the simplest intervention, face covering, was never given the emphasis it should have been given. Most political decisions have been too little, too late even if informed by science.
An analogy - the models used to predict current weather are by no means perfect, but they’re a very useful guide. Lives and property have been saved by heeding weather warnings and taking precautions, especially if in a vulnerable situation. Even if the wind was less bad than expected where I am, it doesn’t mean the science was useless or that I shouldn’t have taken those precautions.

Vaccines and treatments have been great. At times I’ve felt despairing at reaction on those. Especially towards AZ which was at cost. I recall someone talking about people who worked there feeling a bit depressed by reaction they’ve got in general.

I’m fine with modelling being imperfect

I’d like people to recognise that in foresight rather than just hindsight though

So you don’t get that split between yes they have been wrong but this time I’m ‘listening to the science’

And if I could, I’d balance this imperfect modelling with more recognition of the other costs and harms.

One difficulty with modelling has been that it’s difficult to account for how people will behave with no restrictions - so it’s likely that transmission rates have been reduced in advance of restrictions by people deciding they would rather not plan a big event/risk a holiday being cancelled/go to the cinema.

Even when the government thinks it is being ‘light touch’ about restrictions, behaviour still changes.

Let’s not forget that when the country was under restrictions, the British government were happy to hold parties and to socialise.

Clearly they knew that the risk of covid was minimal. They terrified people into obedience for political reasons and not medical ones.

Yes of course, that's why it's science and not religious dogma, and why I've never been a fan of people referring to The Science instead as that brings it perilously close to the latter.

The whole point of the scientific method is that someone postulates a theory which is then vigorously challenged tested. The whole admonition not to question is the antithesis of everything good science stands for.

@Flyonawalk

Let’s not forget that when the country was under restrictions, the British government were happy to hold parties and to socialise.

Clearly they knew that the risk of covid was minimal. They terrified people into obedience for political reasons and not medical ones.

I'm surpised at how pernicious this claim is on MN.

COVID presents a very low risk to an individual if you're not elderly or CEV. It was never about individual risk, it's a numbers game. Too many people get COVID at anyone one time, you risk collapse of infrastructure and healthcare (i.e., you have a non COVID health emergency, you're at risk of dying due to lack of resources).

The government are very aware of that, and so carried on breaking their own rules, knowing it would be fine if the vast majority of the population were complying.

Do you think Boris Johnson was worried he'd be denied a hospital bed if he got COVID, or his son wouldn't get emergency surgery for something like appendicitis, if we were in that situation?

COVID presents a very low risk to an individual if you're not elderly or CEV. It was never about individual risk

Yes, but many (most?) people are in regular contact with people who are elderly/CEV, so concerns about individual risk affect their behaviour, particularly pre-vaccine.

But in the context leafyygreens is talking about (and I agree with that assessment of what was going on), there were only relatively low levels of the virus circulating by that point precisely because everyone had been locked down. The risks to those attending and their contacts were low because of what they were asking everyone else to do, and they knew that.

"The Science" is not a thing, when people go on about the science, they mean the mainstream media peddling of shite. I really frigging doubt most people are out there reading scientific papers and discerning which are worthwhile or not. Anything that doesn't align with a certain mindset is sidelined or silenced. People are just arrogant now and unwilling to listen to anything that even slightly deviates from their materialist mindset.

Tbh I'm undecided on most things, I'm sure about very few things.

@merrymouse

COVID presents a very low risk to an individual if you're not elderly or CEV. It was never about individual risk

Yes, but many (most?) people are in regular contact with people who are elderly/CEV, so concerns about individual risk affect their behaviour, particularly pre-vaccine.

Did you read the rest of my post @merrymouse?

I was specifically replying to this (flawed) argument that keeps being presented that because the government kept breaking their own rules, it meant that coronavirus posed minimal risk - and so no one else should have followed them either.

I was pointing out the risk - to the general public - was of too many people getting COVID at any one time. The government were very aware of this and so knew they could happily break their own rules as long as the majortity of the population were not. And of course, in the event of overwhelmed coronavirus, they certainly won't be the ones not able to get a hospital bed or access services.

Science may be happening but what's being presented to the public is not science. It's media and political spin trussed up as science. I say this as a scientist.

The media have always been terrible at reporting science. 'Cure for cancer found!' (Small trial involving mice). 'Eating sausages doubles your risk of dying from heart disease! (Large amount of sausages, tiny increase in risk) etc etc.

Not to mention all the stupid 'Scientists say this is the way to make the best cup of tea' stories.

Ben Goldacre was good at pointing this stuff out.

Did you read the rest of my post @merrymouse?

Yes, and I agree with it.

I’m pointing out that people also changed their behaviour because of the individual risk to others, even if they were low risk themselves.

I would guess the number of people who have no contact with an elderly relative/somebody on chemo/somebody with diabetes or asthma etc. etc. is low.

@noblegiraffe

The media have always been terrible at reporting science. 'Cure for cancer found!' (Small trial involving mice). 'Eating sausages doubles your risk of dying from heart disease! (Large amount of sausages, tiny increase in risk) etc etc.

Not to mention all the stupid 'Scientists say this is the way to make the best cup of tea' stories.

Ben Goldacre was good at pointing this stuff out.

This. I live with a scientist, one who last year got a first rate MSc in 'control of infectious diseases' from a renowned university. The actual science is always nuanced and accompanied by numerous caveats such as 'ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes'.

Such a subtle approach doesn't play well in the mainstream media, so they ignore it and go for the sensationalist headline.

@LilyPond2

Let us not forget that at the start of the pandemic there was a horrendous death rate among care home residents due to Covid positive people being discharged from hospital into care homes. I don't know whether that particular outcome was due to the scientists who advised the Government being way too optimistic, or whether the scientists advising the Government issued dire warnings about what would happen but the Government failed to act on those warnings.

I think the line at the time, from the WHO, among others, was that the virus wasn't aerosol transmitted, and that asymptomatic spread was not an issue.

"Science" got that wrong.

If science never got anything wrong, we would be at the pinnacle of scientific achievement now, which would be very, very depressing.

AS others have pointed out science evolves, and changes. There are all sorts of science, modelling, statistical, medical. Our vaccination and treatment regimes for Covid, have been fast and effective. The modelling based on imperfect inputs has often been flawed. The governments use and manipulation of the statistics, has been used, arguably very effectively, to nudge population response. Project Fear is real, and still evident.

The ONS now reports fewer deaths from Covid than Flu. All deaths are now below annual averages, few people are now on ventilation, but still many, many MN's are against the removal of the final restrictions, due to fear of the unknown, and mistrust in data and science, due to the mishandling of the same over the last couple of years.

If the government followed scientific advice for pandemics, for example, we would have had an up-to-date supply of PPE ready, just one example. This is another badly reported issue. Up to date PPE has to be bought every year. Hence the recent outcry over excess supply being dumped due to use by dates. You either have it, or you don't, but like snow ploughs, do we really need to spend billions on things we may never use.

many, many MN's are against the removal of the final restrictions, due to fear of the unknown, and mistrust in data and science

As far as I'm aware, the decision to remove the final restrictions has come from the Treasury, not from scientists?

@Myfanwy81 I'm so sorry about your father.